TED Talks: ‘The Habits of Happiness’

Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard believes that well-being can be trained into the mind, that finding a sense of fulfilment strong enough to call happiness is absolutely possible. He believes peace and serenity can become a habit just like anything else—but only if people are willing to reprogram their thoughts.

In this TED Talk, Ricard reveals a few things that get in the way of happiness and makes a strong case for meditation and mind training.

The desire to be happy, whether people realize it or not, is what inspires hopes and dreams, says Ricard. But a lot of people don’t know what true happiness is, and so they never find it. Rather than being fully satisfied, happiness often gets replaced with pleasure, and the experience is so limiting that it leaves people searching for more.

Part of the mistake is the ambiguity surrounding the word happiness, Ricard says, and so it’s better—and more rewarding—to get acquainted with well-being instead.

“I think the best definition, according to the Buddhist view, is that well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation,” Ricard says. “It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment. A state that actually pervades and underlies all emotional states, and all the joys and sorrows that can come one’s way.”

Even though outside influences can enhance well-being, Richard says it’s much more important to look inward. It isn’t enough to simply collect material possessions, because having everything puts people in a position to miss something—and the sense of longing shatters the idea of real happiness. To find a real sense of well-being, Richard says to start with the mind.

“Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time,” he says. “You could go from love to hate. But you cannot, at the same time, toward the same object, the same person, want to harm and want to do good. You cannot, in the same gesture, shake hands and give a blow. So, there are natural antidotes to emotions that are destructive to our inner well-being.”

“Mind training matters…. This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul,” he says. “This is something that"s going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives. We are ready to spend 15 years achieving education. We love to do jogging, fitness. We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful. Yet we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most—the way our mind functions—which, again, is the ultimate thing that determines the quality of our experience.”